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// I - The Only One 
// Story: Empty Sockets 
// by Skijarama 
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Some arbitrary number of centuries ago, the world was submerged under the rising tides of the ocean. Rain poured from the heavens for a long time, eventually leading to only the very tip of the tallest mountain in the world to poke out from the water’s surface. It was an apocalypse in just about every sense of the word.

But ponies, being the stubborn lot they were, managed to survive on a collection of floating islands that now inhabit the skies. How the islands came to be there is unknown, but that lack of information didn’t stop the survivors from spreading out and building new homes for themselves in the clouds. One thing led to another, and eventually, the skies became filled with great airships, powered by steam and clockwork and relics of the old world.

On one such airship, a top of the line prototype known simply as the Argo, a battle was taking place. Rainbow Dash, a mare miraculously preserved from the old world, launched herself at a griffon bounty hunter named Gava, who was intent on capturing her and her friends. The battle was, alas, not going quite as Gava had been hoping.

And so she did something unexpected.

Within a workshop aboard the Argo, surrounded by workbenches and tools, Gava feinted high, luring the pegasus into a swooping kick. She bore the force of the kick with a grunt, catching the outstretched hoof and taking the fight to the ground. After a brief scuffle, Gava’s weight came out on top.

“Say, did they have pirate stories in the past?” Gava asked, struggling to hold the pegasus down.

“What’re you getting at, birdbrain?” Rainbow snarled. She reared her head back and thrust it forwards.

Gava’s beak stretched open. Rather than dodge the headbutt, she angled her head to the side, darting in.

And that was how Rainbow Dash lost her left eye.

“Oh dear,” the eye grumbled in a remarkably calm voice, thickly tinted with an accent that just screamed ‘sophisticated.’ As it went sliding down Gava’s throat a moment later, constricted on all sides by the squishy red tube of the esophagus, it couldn’t help but let out a quiet sigh. “This is most unfortunate.”

With a muffled plop, the eye was unceremoniously deposited in Gava’s stomach. Partially broken down meat was scattered all around in the digestive acids, filling the cramped, pulsing space with a rancid stench that made Rainbow’s Eye exceedingly glad that it did not have taste buds.

“And we had such good plans, too,” it lamented, allowing the movement of Gava’s body to roll it around. “Ah, well. No use crying over spilled milk. Or, well, blood, I suppose.”

Wishing its sister back in Rainbow’s skull the best of luck, the eye settled in and prepared for a long and unpleasant experience. After all, being eaten meant that it would escape sooner rather than later. All it had to do was wait and prepare.

The stomach gurgled around it.







Some indeterminate amount of time later, Rainbow’s eye let out a long, happy sigh as he — having decided to be a he — was finally dropped off the side of The Roc’s Screech along with the rest of the biological waste that had been expelled from Gava’s griffon tush. The fall to the oceans below was a thrilling, albeit nauseating experience. The wind blowing against his naked, membranous flesh was not unlike what he experienced when Rainbow took to the skies at high speeds. 

The impact with the water’s surface was much less delightful.

If the eye had to make a comparison, it was like the time when Rainbow Dash had, in a moment of true brilliance, chucked herself off of the high-dive at a swimming pool in an attempt to do a backflip without using her wings. She had been dared, and the cocksure pegasus had been determined to prove she wasn’t a chicken.

Long story short, she had failed and hit the water spine first with nothing to slow her fall. It had hurt.

And so did the eye when it hit the water at terminal velocity. It’s squishy form spread out like a pancake for a second before snapping back into its usual shape and sinking a few inches below the water’s surface. 

“Good thing I am immortal,” the eye said to itself as it used the ragged strips of stray flesh behind it as a fin and rudder to turn and look around. The waters rippled gently overhead, the sunlight piercing through creating ever-shifting shafts of gentle light. A few bubbles drifted aimlessly up from the other lumps of matter that had fallen alongside him that, for the sake of polite conversation, shall not be named at this time.

“So, this is to be my new home, is it? Rather dreary, is it not?” the eye pondered quietly, turning in a slow circle. “Where am I to begin…?” 

Separated from his host as he was, the eye had no means of aiding Rainbow or any of her friends in their quest. Reuniting with his mobile home was almost certainly out of the question, seeing as she was in the sky and he was… well, not.

There was, however, one option.

Leviathan Wakes. The eye spread out slightly in an effort to emulate a confident smile. The Argo had stopped there not all that long ago, and it was a settlement on the waves. If he could get there, maybe he could find some way of tracking down Rainbow and reuniting with his host! And who knew? He could probably learn a few things on the way by speaking with the locals!

It was daunting, to be sure. He didn’t even know where to look for Leviathan Wakes. He wasn’t even sure where he was right now. But as troubling a task as it seemed, it was nothing the little eyeball that could couldn’t handle.

“I shall just have to make some inquiries!” he decided triumphantly, a few bubbles floating up out of his pupil. With an adorable wiggle of his makeshift tail, the eye set off into the abyss, eager to find something or someone to speak with and question. “Ho, there! Is there any fishy around willing to spare a moment of their time to answer the questions of an eyeball of refinement? I brought blood!”

A shark promptly swam by and swallowed the eye whole.

“Oh, good.”